Orange Pop: Fiction Reform enjoys the spotlight

La The members of local punk band Fiction Reform have been caught in a whirlwind of career milestones.

As vocalist/guitarist Brenna Red and bassist Danielle "Chip" Lehman settled into a booth at Slidebar Rock-N-Roll Kitchen in downtown Fullerton for a chat last week, the discussion quickly turned to the group’s then-upcoming gig with O.C. heroes Social Distortion, last Sunday at House of Blues Sunset Strip.

"It’s like that feeling you have right before Christmas," Red explains. "We’re not nervous, but we’re anxious, like we want to be playing it right now."

Following that sold-out performance, Fiction Reform competed Tuesday at the third installment of this year’s OC Music Awards Showcase Series, competing in preliminary rounds for the best live band title. The band also is nominated in the best punk category (they were up for that in 2011 as well), facing off against Audacity, Death Hymn Number 9, Social D and the Offspring. The winner will be revealed at the awards ceremony on March 9 at City National Grove of Anaheim.

"To be even in the same category as (those bands) is pretty awesome," Lehman says, showing off an Offspring-inspired tattoo on her forearm. "It’s kind of absurd because those bands have so many years on us and they’re way, way up here, but just to be nominated with them in this, that says we’re at least doing something right and people are taking notice."

She, Red, guitarist Aaron Chabak and drummer Danny Baeza are also buzzing from the release of their sophomore album, Take Your Truth, which dropped in November.

For the band’s 2010 debut, Revelation in the Palms of the Weak, Chabak and Baeza laid the foundation, creating the music and signing with La Habra label Basement Records, before soliciting online for a vocalist. When a few auditions failed, Chabak hit up Red, who he knew from previous bands.

"I was working at a coffee shop," she recalls, "so they came down on my lunch break and I belted out the chorus to ‘Cancerous Gold,’ and they were like, ‘OK, done!’ It was kind of creepy. I was sitting in the front seat of the car and Aaron was in the back listening. I had never really hung out with these guys before ... and I had gotten into the car with strangers. So I didn’t listen to my mother, but I guess it paid off just this once."

Lehman, who had just left an all-girl punk band, had put up an ad on Craigslist to see if she could find a new group but was disappointed and sometimes horrified by the responses. After almost giving up hope, Fiction Reform’s original bassist Tom Clark had to bow out of a few gigs. The band found and answered Lehman’s online ad.

"I played a show with them in Costa Mesa, then we did one in Vegas. I kept playing with them and all of a sudden they were like ‘oh, hey, we need money from you," she says with a laugh. "I was like ‘what for?’ And they said, ‘Oh, well you’re in the band now, so you need to contribute.’ That was it. There was never a discussion or an announcement. It was just ‘hey, you’re in the band, you pay now.’"

Early last year the foursome went back into the studio at Basement to begin work on its new release, with each player offering creative input.

"I am very loud and can sort of beg to be the center of attention, (but) I still get very self-conscious," Red admits. "I was nervous about writing on this record. What if they didn’t like my lyrics or my guitar playing? But in a healthy way that made it a lot more interesting. There’s a lot more of us in this album because we had the time to massage it over. Now I can’t wait until the next one. We already have four new songs."

In an effort to have fun with the release, Fiction Reform set up a promotional sale on its website allowing fans to preorder the album and receive a surprise. "They didn’t know if it would be a good or bad prize," Lehman says. "It was a crapshoot, but people had a good time with it, posting pictures on Twitter with the stuff they had won."

Among the prizes the band gave away were a stack of Sega Genesis games, a broken belt, signed copies of a U.K. magazine article that featured the band last year, autographed drum heads and Chabak’s soccer trophy he received in fourth grade. "He’s going to argue that the trophy wasn’t for participation, that it was actually for second place," Brenna Red says. "Either way it was entertaining."

Should Fiction Reform win the showcase series, Red says it will be just another stepping stone. The first thing the band will do is "get drunk!" "If we do win," she says, "it’s just opening more doors and we’ll go right through them – I’ll break dance right through them."

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